


Colonia

by doomcanary



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Humor, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Returns, Darcy Lewis Is a Good Bro, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Perfume, Pining, Remodelling Your Apartment Through Rage, Steve's Indefatigable Creativity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-16 09:25:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8096740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomcanary/pseuds/doomcanary
Summary: In which Steve deals with his feelings about Bucky through creativity - but this time it's perfumery, rather than drawing.





	1. Two Legs Bad

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I've written in a very long time - it's good to be back! This was partly inspired by a fic I read a long while ago (and have forgotten the title of, irritatingly) which mentioned Peggy Carter using Worth's Je Reviens as her signature scent, and partly by the fact I've recently got kind of geeky about perfumery myself. Each chapter will have some notes at the end explaining a little more about perfume jargon, particular notes I mention, and sometimes linking to real-world perfumes which were the inspirations for Steve's creations.

Natasha coughs and holds the strip of card away from her. “Thankyou,” she smiles insincerely at the sales assistant, “but I don’t think it’s for me.”  
“It’s Mugler,” Steve murmurs dryly. “What were you expecting?”  
Natasha hands him the strip and he raises it to his own nose; he is assailed by a blast of overwhelmingly buttery pie crust. It’s the sort of all-American dessert that would make you feel sick after half a portion; the kind of thing his mother would have loved to bake to feed him up, but never had the money to waste the butter.  
“Good lord,” he says.  
“Ridiculous, isn’t it?” says Natasha.  
As they meander on between the beauty counters Steve finds himself startled by the nose that could produce a scent like that. Is that really what a woman is, to him? He can’t place it between sexless matron and overweight fag hag - but then he supposes that a house as devoted to gourmandises as Mugler is hardly going to reach for femininity’s colder side. Natasha is in conversation with the assistant at the Chanel counter, picking up powder and foundation; Tony is throwing a benefit at the weekend and they will be, as she puts it, on public parade.  
“Oh, and do you have a 30ml of No. 5?” Natasha asks.  
_Really_? He thinks, disappointed. Natasha tosses him a glare as if he’d spoken out loud, pays for her purchases and steers him away by the arm.  
“You are capitalist vermin and a snob,” she tells him tartly.  
She has a point about the snobbery, he supposes. But he refuses to be ashamed of his art.  
“You know, if you ever want something a little more… distinctive,” he says, “you only need to ask. It’d be a pleasure to scent you.”  
Her face freezes for a split second in a mask of polite amusement. For Natasha, it’s almost the equivalent of fainting where she stands, and he’s not surprised when she makes a beeline for the exit of the store, seeking less crowded air.  
“The most important thing is to blend in,” she mutters as they walk, as if they’re on a mission and in danger of being made. “No. 5 is classic, it’s quality and better yet every man there will think of someone else he already screwed.”  
“It’s a low-risk event, Nat,” he tries, knowing it won’t make any difference. “Just Tony’s rich-kid friends. And a half dozen Avengers. If anyone tries anything they’ll be hamburger in ten seconds flat.”  
She permits herself the minutest shudder. “I’m very flattered,” she says. “But I think I’ll pass.”

Back in the Tower, Steve finds himself staring at the coffee machine in his kitchen for several minutes without switching it on; recognising the symptoms, he heads for his perfume lab. Tony had spent at least sixty-five full seconds laughing at him when he’d asked for the conversion, and then a gleam had come into his mahogany-dark eyes and he’d suddenly started asking about technical perfumery instead. They’d been standing in the kitchen of the communal floor at the time, and Steve had waxed lyrical about the artistry of blending to the point where everyone else except Bruce had wandered away to the couch and put on a movie. Bruce, as he was wont to do, listened quietly. Even Tony only interrupted once a minute.  
“Huh,” Tony said at length. “I never thought I’d have something in common with you.”  
“You’re into perfumery?” said Steve, surprised.  
“No,” said Tony. “I invent with both hands and the untutored seat of my pants.”  
Confused, Steve had retreated with a coffee, leaving Tony and Bruce to geek out about aromachemicals in his wake.

His workspace is cluttered, vials and pipettes left scattered from a sudden call to assemble half way through an afternoon. His notebook sits under an empty glass beaker, open to a blank double page on which is written the solitary heading ‘Bucky”.  
Steve looks down at it and sighs, then picks it up and sets it to one side before he can be distracted from his muse. Tea, he thinks, and maybe a hint of date or fig, rich and jammy; black samovar tea, sweetened with jam the way they drink it in Russia. But then that’s for the Soviet elite, safe in their power; Natasha had been no comfortable _nomenklatura_ , growing fat on the buttery pie-crusts others had baked. She had been the knife of the USSR; the poison of revolution.  
Wormwood, then, and chill and bitterness; perhaps synthetic iris, a flash of the metal in her hidden edge. Something weightier, the leather of her elegant boots underlying it all. The spine of it begins to come together, and he pauses, reaching for his notebook again to sketch out formulas.  
Bucky.  
The blank page taunts him, guilt making his hand hover with the page half turned. He sighs, and promises _tomorrow_ to Bucky’s ghost.

Of the six blends he comes up with, one is perfection after it has aged. The plum-jam sweetened tea is distant and muted; front and centre is vital, blood-smudged foliage and well-used leather. In Steve’s mind a movie plays out; Natasha’s bright hair flames against snowy pine woods, twin blades slashing and gleaming in her hands. She spins, kicks out, her body the instrument of gods; a choking cry sounds, and blood splashes against the snow.  
“And a romantic too,” says Natasha when she smells it. “You are incorrigible, Captain.”  
But on his way up to the benefit dinner, the elevator holds a cloud of cypress and plum tea.

*

 _Two Legs Bad_. The name comes to him long after the formula; George Orwell’s pigs, aping their captors and trampling on their peers. And it’s the scent of the world they leave behind them, too: acrid smoke, cold earth, the ashes of herbs. Natasha got out. She got out. 

Bucky couldn’t. He had no choice but to be destroyed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pie-crust perfume Steve encounters in the store is Mugler 'Womanity' - seriously, it's like walking into a bakery. Foody-smelling perfumes are called "gourmand" scents by perfume conoisseurs, and are often looked down upon because they're so appealing to the masses. Steve is a little bit of a hipster here, bless his heart.
> 
> Natasha's scent is not really inspired by any one particular thing, although it's in the same sort of slightly Gothic ballpark as a lot of Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs perfume oils. It's probably a chypre, which is a family of perfumes with a complex and sometimes challenging character. Traditionally they feature oakmoss in the base, which has a sort of "wet forest floor" green and earthy smell.
> 
> Using jam to sweeten tea is a Russian tradition which I also read about in a fic, although sadly I can't remember which one it was!
> 
> EDIT - the jam-in-tea fic was [Upgrade: Advanced Happiness Skills](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4806749) by the deeply awesome owlet. It's a later part of the [Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail](http://archiveofourown.org/series/195689) series, the whole of which is awesome enough to turn me into a flailing inarticulate fangirl. Which is impressive considering I'm (a) a man and (b) give grumpy!Bucky a run for his money most days. Anyway, consider this a rec.


	2. Alien Probe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some of the text in this chapter is rendered as images to make it look like a chat. If you use assistive technology or can't see the images for any other reason, and you can't read the images, please let me know in comments and I'll find an alternative for you!

Steve has never seen Coulson in anything but a suit before. He has a weird moment of feeling as though he’s looking at some prankster wearing a lifelike mask. And a knitted vest with leather buttons.  
“Captain-” Coulson pauses and visibly gathers himself. “Steve. I know that we’ve worked together for a while, and I know you’re aware I’m, ah, an aficionado of the Captain America brand.”  
Steve feels faintly uncomfortable. Coulson knows things about him that he doesn’t know.  
“I wanted to let you know that I do understand the distinction between the person and the job,” says Coulson plainly. Steve is taken aback. “You’re - Steve Rogers is just a guy, and one in a very difficult position at times.”  
“Yeah,” says Steve quietly. “I am just a guy.”  
“This must sound very awkward.”  
“A little.”  
“May I be honest?”  
“Please do. Phil.” Steve has to remind himself to use Coulson’s given name.  
“After the things I’ve been through myself - I know you’ve read the file, don’t blush - I feel very isolated from other people in some ways. And I think perhaps you and I might understand each other better than most. I was wondering if you’d be interested in having dinner with me. Tomorrow.”  
Steve is startled right from his collarbones to his balls.  
“I thought you and Clint were…” he trails off, gesturing.  
Phil smiles a little ruefully and looks down at his coffee cup. “We dated for a while. It didn’t work out.”  
“I’m sorry to hear that.” And he is, now that he stops to observe himself. Clint is a nice guy who had a bad start; Coulson is a bad guy with a good heart. They would have been good together.  
He examines his feelings. It can’t hurt, says one part of him. Hey, someone as decent as Phil deserves a little better than indifference, argues another. He’s both technically your boss and functionally the enemy, supplies a third. Breaking fraternization rules with someone you know is a spy? That’s the definition of insane.  
“I’m sorry, Phil,” is what comes out of his mouth. “I don’t think I feel about you that way.” Which is the truth. He doesn’t have to go into the why of it. “But if you ever need someone to talk to, please know that I’m here as a friend.”  
Coulson’s face only gives away the barest flicker; he’s no child, he has to have approached this with a level head, but Steve still feels as if he kicked a puppy.  
“I appreciate that,” he says. “And don’t feel guilty.”  
Steve is taken aback again. “I, uh,” he begins.  
Coulson’s eyes twinkle. Steve momentarily wonders whether he’s absolutely sure he doesn’t feel that way. “I’m not completely unobservant, Captain Rogers,” he smiles.  
Spy. It figures.

Later, Steve asks himself why he doesn’t feel that way. Coulson surprised him twice in a day and that tells him he’s missing something about the man. There could be a whole lot of other surprises in store. And Coulson is -  
He can’t even call the man by his given name.  
It’s not going to work if Steve thinks of him as a colleague. It’s just not. He decides firmly that he’s an adult, and if something happens to change his mind about Coulson later, Steve Rogers is also perfectly capable of asking someone on a date.  
Although he does wonder how someone as earnestly responsible as Captain America would cope with doing the same.

  
He decides on a whim to immortalise Phil in scent. He wants to bottle that unexpected twinkle, the shock he felt at seeing the private man. He builds the backbone out of cool aromatics, a classic fougere with a vintage feel; but then a twist of dirty cumin and musk, a hint of warmth in the heart and a sensuality veiled under the formal, clean facade. When he tests it it wears beautifully, projecting just far enough to reach someone who stands close; it makes Darcy blink and ask him what he’s cooking up, sniffing the air somewhere near his left nipple.  
“I’m not sure what to call it,” he confides. “I want something that has a vibe of the unexpected.”  
“Unexpected like you won the lottery?” asks Darcy. “Or unexpected like WHOA, alien butt probe?”  
Steve cracks up.

  
_www.lessenteursducapitaine.com/new.php_

**Alien Probe**  
They say experience changes a man. Alien Probe is the scent of a man changed by experience. 

 

 

 

A day or two after the page goes live, his phone buzzes with a text. It’s Coulson.

_Very funny, Captain. I’ll take 100ml._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Musk is a note that polarises opinion among fragrance lovers. Some people think it smells "dirty", or skanky, or lots of other unflattering words - personally I just think it smells kind of warm. Apparently if you want to know where you stand on the whole musk question you should try Serge Lutens' Muscs Koublai Khan. Every time I smell that it reminds me of one of my ex-boyfriends. There's a great and very funny [guide to musk perfumes](http://perfumeposse.com/2012/11/05/musk-perfume-comprehensive-guide-to-musk-perfume/) at Perfume Posse, and the awesome Candy Perfume Boy has some [suggestions for exploring musk fragrances](https://thecandyperfumeboy.com/2016/07/11/six-scents-to-make-you-appreciate-musk/) too.
> 
> Also, while it's not very common for a fragrance to totally transform itself on your skin over time, it does occasionally happen so I'm not making this up!
> 
> There's nothing I know of out there which is exactly like how I imagine Alien Probe to be; maybe a little like Cerruti 1881 Pour Homme with more musk in it, or Dior Homme but not so clean and tidy.


	3. Saudades

Peggy didn’t remember him today. Lately, as the year warms, she’s been fading; like the last hours of a perfume, she’s the ghost of what she was. The ethereal bones of a mind, somehow still possessed of form enough to weight the starchy sheets of a sick-bed. Steve expected her to evaporate, to dissolve into a wisp of frankincense. Afterward he sat outside the home for a while, smelling the wet earth, the rude exuberance of nature all around him; he hated it, momentarily, for having the gall to be so crude in its fecundity. Peggy did not deserve to be buried, to rot, to leach away and become other, brighter things.  
He remembered the smell of her, perfume and cigarettes, the particular roughness of the wool of her uniform, and the startling slickness of her centre, enveloping his hand. His first experience of the scent of a woman and one that would never be erased from his out-of-time mind. Once again nylon and skin seem to brush against his wrist, once again he feels awkward in this giant new body; terrified of breaking her, and yet more fragile in his soul than he ever knew. Once again his body stirs to hers.  
The rose he picks is the rose of her lipstick, her powder; underneath it magnolia, aloof as she was, purring musks and slick tuberose. Rich Spanish tobacco sets her amid blurred ranks of Army men; above it, he paints the jubilation of his love.  
Saudades is his name for it; longing for that which will never be again. But it smells, not of longing, but of a moment poised on forever; the tiny intimacies of the time when he did not know he would be history so soon.

Longing… longing smells colder, and yet hotter. Longing burns his skin like winter air, flakes into his eyelashes as snow does. Longing is close, an arm’s reach away, musky with use and habit, dirty with mud. Longing shares his cigarette; smoke tasted between two mouths.  
Longing is Bucky, bright and set in amber. The colours in his mind overlaying grey photographs. Longing is all the life there ever was, and the space in the air beside him where it never is.  
Bucky never wore cologne; an expense a Brooklyn boy could ill afford. He smelled of soap and hard work, pomade when he went out dancing. He wonders what Bucky would choose now, in this age of affluence; whether he would pick something homely, like the bitter fougeres of their youth, or pour that life and laughter into sweeter things.  
Or whether, being Bucky, he would never wear cologne.  
The page in his notebook bears five scratched-out formulas now, but to Steve it still looks blank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I mentioned in the notes at the beginning, this fic was in part inspired by a mention in another fic of Peggy wearing Worth's 'Je Reviens', released in 1932, as her signature scent. Je Reviens is a complex floral fragrance that uses both powdery, traditionally feminine notes and synthetic notes to give a structured effect; it's actually very apt for Peggy since in terms of its character it's a good twenty years ahead of its time. (There are a surprising number of fragrances still available that were originally released in the 1930s: Old Spice came out in 1937, for example. A few others you might like to try include Joy by Jean Patou, Guerlain's legendary Vol de Nuit (which is named after the novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupery) and the delightfully named French Cancan by Caron. There's also a fragrance called Jasmin et Cigarette by Etat Libre d'Orange, which is 100% modern, but which aims for a 30s Hollywood starlet feel.)
> 
> Coincidentally, like a lot of the characters in the Cap films, Je Reviens has also recently come back from the dead - it was re-released as a much higher quality "Couture" version after having been cheapened for the mass market in the 1970s and 80s. 
> 
> Frankincense is a very common note in perfumery; it's refined from the solidified sap of a particular type of tree and has a sharp smell which reminds many people of church incense (for good reason - it's most commonly used as incense). It has a huge variety of other uses including being part of the ancient Egyptian mummification process. There's an entire pocket universe of perfumes based around incense, so if you enjoy it you're in luck.
> 
> And then there's tuberose. To me, tuberose smells humid, flowery and somehow rumpled and tired. Some people think it smells similar to female genitalia, and it's often used in perfumes intended to be sexy. It has to be used very cautiously since it has a tendency to take over a perfume - here Steve is pairing it up with magnolia, which smells incredibly cool and formal, to keep a lid on its exuberance.


	4. Man of Science

“Captain?”  
“Agent Coulson, what can I do for you?” Steve straightens as he speaks, Captain America folding itself around him. He’d swear he can smell the colourful, well-worn leather of his original suit, the reek of warm greasepaint rolling off the girls. His phone is hot against his ear.  
There’s a pause. Steve’s neck prickles. Coulson, true to Thor’s misunderstanding of his name, never loses his cool.  
“As of 0845 this morning, Captain,” says the agent neutrally, “Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes is in SHIELD custody.”   
The leather-and-greasepaint memory of the Captain evaporates. Steve Rogers, just a guy, grips the workbench with his free hand and lets himself breathe.  
“Is there anything else you can tell me?” he asks.  
Coulson’s facade cracks, just a little. “HYDRA had him,” he replies. “And before that the Soviets. It’s been - decades.”  
Steve startles as a hand touches his back. It’s Natasha. She must have come in silently, but he wouldn’t have heard her if she’d been louder than Tony. She leans in, close to the phone.  
“Coulson,” she says. “I can brief him.”  
“That may be fore the best,” says Coulson. His voice gives away a hint of sadness.  
“One question,” says Steve.  
“Yes, Captain?”  
“When can I see him?”  
Again that silence, but this time cooler, more a thing of choice.  
“Natasha will brief you,” says Coulson. “And for what it’s worth, Captain… I’m sorry.” He hangs up.

 

When Steve comes home from the SHIELD facility, he takes off his shoes, hangs up his jacket, and methodically removes the wall between his kitchen and dining area using nothing but his fists. When he comes back to himself, sitting in dust-coated clothes amongst the rubble, the door to his quarters is open and Natasha is sitting across the hall, patiently watching him.   
“You want help cleaning up?” she asks casually.  
Steve’s mouth twitches as if it wants to smile, but the movement doesn’t reach the rest of him.   
“I’m good,” he says. It will keep him occupied.  
Natasha nods, stands and leaves him alone. Plaster dust has healed into the scabs on his knuckles. A library of unsaid things hangs behind Natasha in the air. 

 

There’s a blank patch in his mind now, a space he can’t look at; if he tries, his attention just slides off. He runs, he cooks, he eats, he blends oils and alcohol and he goes to bed at night. But he’s absent. Some part of him simply isn’t there.  
After three days he gives himself permission to be a mess. He’s in the perfume lab at the time. He clears away the batch of Arctic Crash he’d been fixing and lets himself just make something.  
It starts out cosy and homey; what he imagines his father might have smelled like, if Steve had known him. But he can’t live with anything so simple right now; it feels sickly-sweet to him, a fantasy of a life he never had. His hand hovers over castoreum for a moment, then darts over to take a vial of galbanum. Oakmoss follows it, and angelica root; he tweaks and adjusts, tries out inverting the whole blend, foregrounding the green notes over the comforting ones.

 

He ends up with two he deems worth keeping. In one, oakmoss and civet rumble behind a veil of fireside comfort; an immense, wolf-like beast asleep by the fire. The other makes him picture a view, across the valley towards the smoke of that fireside’s chimney; it is night. It’s a narrow view, edged in black; the hating eye of a sniper’s scope.   
He sits back to clear his head, leaves the lab for an hour to walk and let himself settle; and when he comes back, he realises they’re Jekyll and Hyde.   
Ah well; he needed a Halloween release anyway. It’ll work as a fun little theme. He’d gift some to Bruce just for fun, but the man has the olfactory equivalent of a tin ear, coupled with all the confidence in his body of a high school nerd. Steve can smell the Aqua Velva three minutes before he arrives.  
His attention settles, brooding, on the mental image of Bruce’s accident: laboratory glassware smashed in the foreground as a human form writhes and distorts, unfocused, further off. What beakers and bottles shaped Bucky’s life? Perhaps there is an octopus carved above that cosy fire; perhaps laboratories, chilly brutalist cubes, squat in the valley’s floor.  
He will call these strange twin perfumes Men of Science. Men of science must be afraid of what they create. Those who are not, those who do not harness the grace of their discoveries, who fail to rein in their power and serve the greater good - they are the things that will become monsters in the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My big suggestion for something to sniff if you want a feel for this chapter's mood is Encre Noire by Lalique. It's the gloomiest, moodiest thing I've ever smelled.


	5. Chariot

“Gentlemen,” says Hawkeye over the comm, “welcome to the ‘hurry up and wait’ part of the plan.”

Steve sighs and brings up Youtube in another window. At least a hotel room provides relative comfort as surveillance goes. The steady drizzle is thickening to rain; he doesn’t envy Hawkeye, perched on the roof.

“Are you watching Groundhog Day?” says Falcon after a while.

“Man that movie sucks,” says Hawkeye.

“You’re kidding, right?” asks Falcon in disbelief.

“Seriously? You’re asking a sniper to rate a movie about being stuck in the same place for days on end, waiting for something you have no idea about to happen?”

“No, I’m talking about an all-time classic of American culture that could only be improved by an actual black dude,” says Falcon.

“Culture?” interjects Steve in disbelief. “I know for a fact you two have both visited Europe.”

“Sure,” says Hawkeye. “Parisian pigeons aim when they shit on your scope.”

“Unlike some people using the bathroom,” grouses Steve.

“Sorry, Mom,” comes the chorus over the radio.

  


He’s composing the scent in his head even as he listens to them dissecting Bill Murray. He once saw a picture of a tarot card called the Chariot: the cart was drawn by two horses of different colours, both snorting and thundering as they tore along a road. The charioteer, alarmed, tried desperately to keep them from tearing the chariot in two. These two are too professional to derail the whole mission in their enthusiasm for banter, but Steve does often feel like the parent in the driving seat of the car.

He knows very well Fury sent him off on this mission to give him headspace. He’s fairly sure he was teamed with the Gruesome Twosome to cheer him up, too. It’s nothing that couldn’t have waited; a low-level HYDRA executive, not likely to be in possession of anything grand. As gestures go it’s a crude one, but it speaks affection.

“I have eyes on the target,” says Hawkeye tersely, and suddenly all three are soldiers again.

“Area clear.” Falcon is operating air surveillance with his drone.

Steve doesn’t hear the rifle fire, but he sees the figure crumple in the street. “On my way.”

  


  


He’s been back for nearly a day and he still can’t work up the nerve to visit Bucky. He can’t shake the mental image of the man he saw in the cell when Coulson first called him. It was like seeing Bucky’s ghost; his eyes were empty, unwavering, fixed on a null midpoint on the wall opposite his face.

“Bucky.” Steve had spoken softly.

No response.

“Bucky.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“It’s what your name used to be.”

“I don’t have a name now.”

“Yes you do.”

“I’m called the Asset.”

“James Buchanan Barnes.”

“Sergeant, 32557038, known associate of Captain America, killed in action, 1944.”

In Steve’s mind the lone figure crumples in the empty street and is also Steve, crumpling where he stands. Bucky falls from the train car, eyes anguished, and is also Steve. Love and terror snort and thunder, tearing him in half as they race towards the unknown, the turn of the page.

“Physical similarity to the Asset observed and noted.”

There is the faint, definite twist of a smile on the Bucky-Asset’s mouth.

  


  


_The Chariot_

_Metallic lavender and geranium warmed by the kindness of tonka, with a burst of humorous bergamot and honest grey musk._

  


  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There actually is a small range of tarot-themed perfumes on sale at the moment - they're made by Dolce & Gabbana (more info [at fragrantica](http://www.fragrantica.com/designers/Dolce%26Gabbana.html), search for the Anthology scents). The only one I've tried is No. 3 L'Imperatrice, which has the dubious distinction of being the only perfume I've ever smelled that made me feel physically ill. Notes in perfumery often don't smell anything like the real-world version of the substance - ginger is one of the best examples of that - but I really had no idea it was possible to do something that unpleasant to redcurrants.
> 
> The tarot card image I'm describing is the Chariot from the [Sharman-Caselli tarot](http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/sharman-caselli/), which is my personal favourite for readings.


	6. Stark Naked

Steve is three attempts into scenting Tony and wondering if he’s bitten off more than he can chew.   
“This, what is this, eau de condom?” asks Tony, nose deep in Stark No. I. “I smell rubber. I mean sure, it’s got a certain something as scents go, but really, I’m not that kinky, what were you - hey, this isn’t an olfactory way of hitting on me is it? Because that’d be totally okay.”  
“It’s more about the engineer-inventor in you, I -” says Steve, feeling lame. Tony has moved on, however, hovering over the various vials and strips of card.  
“I liked the one that smelled like champagne, was that number 3? Hand me that one again.”  
Steve sets it on the workbench next to him. Tony is his own worst enemy sometimes.  
Stark No. III, tentatively titled Red and Gold, is an opulent rendition of the aesthetic of Iron Man. Opening on notes of champagne and ginger, it smooths into nutmeg, tea rose and grapefruit, on a polished base of ambergris and woods. Steve finds it somewhat mainstream if he’s honest, but it’s a solid enough scent and it’s certainly Tony’s favourite.  
“So what do you think about no. II?” he asks pleadingly, helpless in the face of the juggernaut that is Anthony Stark.  
“That one’s weird. I don’t like it. Well, no, I don’t not like it, but I don’t like it ether, it’s just… weird. It reminds me of… something I can’t think of, but it really, definitely reminds me of it. Am I being clear? You got that, right?”  
“Five by five,” says Steve faintly.

Once Tony has gone, in possession of a flacon of diluted Red and Gold and strict instructions to let it age for six weeks which he will undoubtedly ignore, Steve goes back to his apartment, showers and spritzes some Terre d’Hermes Eau Tres Fraiche on his chest. The sharp orange fills his senses and blows Tony’s blethering away. He relaxes with a sigh.  
Hitting on him? Hitting on him? Wasn’t Tony supposed to have an appreciation for his creativity now? Why would he think that? Why would Tony confuse artistic fascination with the gleaming engineering of the suit with a personal obsession for the man who created -  
Oh.  
Why might one creative genius read a certain personal bias into the passion and dedication of another. Especially since creative genius no. 1 was an absurdly egocentric man who had recently realised that creative genius no. 2 was, in fact, also a creative genius.  
(Steve isn’t sure where modesty about his talent went. He thinks it may have frozen off him in the Arctic. That or his subconscious is horribly sarcastic about Stark).   
For a long moment Steve pauses to consider Tony Stark; not as a whirlwind of words and ideas, the human chilli sauce that elevates any social occasion from the mundane to the sinus-blistering, but as a man. As a defined, dark and endlessly distinguished man. Unbidden, his mind paints pictures of that jawline, rimed with stubble and under his hand; he imagines the hard planes of that body against his, the silences that would grow in the familiar space between them. The moments of darkness he’s seen in those rich eyes, the doubt that deepens Tony like vetiver.  
His mouth twists in a half-smile as he realises two things: why Tony didn’t like Stark No. II, and what he should call it.

\- - -

  
Basenotes forums > Fragrance discussion > General fragrance discussion

 **NEW from Les Senteurs du Capitaine!!!**  
Started by fragrantpeggy, 7th May at 19:27:32  
[US flag]

> STARK NAKED  
>    
> For men and women
> 
> A journey into a lovely, damaged world, STARK NAKED is inspired by the hills and valleys in the road of life; the deep moments of reflection that strip away our defences and define us as we are. As Paulo Coelho said, “These are the beloved marks and scars that will open the gates of Paradise to me. There was a time when I used to listen to tales of bravery. There was a time when I lived only because I needed to live. But now I live because I am a warrior and because I wish one day to be in the company of Him for whom I have fought so hard.' A scent for hearts touched by love and darkness.
> 
> STARK NAKED opens on neroli and black pepper, with heart notes of mandarin, Damask rose and spices and a base of incense, patchouli and moss.

  
Epic_curian  
[UK flag]

That sounds gorgeous. Who’s up for a UK split?

  
GuerlinAdrian  
[US flag]

That’s heartbreaking. You know his history, right?

  
Fragrantpeggy  
[US flag]

I keep telling myself it’s not a love song to his long lost Bucky Barnes. But my subconscious isn’t listening.

  
Orientalist  
[French flag]

Can’t you fangirls keep your grubby little fantasies to yourselves? It sounds like it’s just going to be a fruitchouli to me. I don’t get all the excitement about this house, just because someone is a superhero doesn’t make them good at perfume.

  
GuerlinAdrian  
[US flag]

Oh hush you snob. The fragrances speak for themselves. And some of us are boys.

  
Epic_curian  
[UK flag]

Anyone?

:(

 

\- - -

  
_Bucky no. VII_

He imagines Buck in a tuxedo, his thick wild hair tamed and tied back; but there’s a Beretta in his pocket and a knife inside his sleeve. This is no James Bond, all charm and suavity; it’s a wolf groomed and led to the table, its ferocity only temporarily restrained. Woods and incense bite like teeth, a smudge of castoreum calls to wilderness, animal and thick. Yet somewhere in its depths swims a black, honey-rich sweetness; that ineffable warmth that is Bucky.  
It’s not right. The Bucky he saw has not been tamed and groomed and normalised. And even if it had… there’s a sharpness in Buck, has been since before he fell. It was there in the cold focus of the sniper who killed for Steve, and it showed itself here and there in the acid that lay behind his witty words. Bucky knew, still knows, who his master is; it’s just not the highest bidder any more.   
Wolf at the Table purrs with subtle menace, but it’s a creature of pure instinct. Bucky is greater than that, than what he was made. This isn’t right.

 

“Hey Steve,” says Darcy, a few days later. “Thought you might want to see this one for yourself.”  
She’s been running the business side of Les Senteurs du Capitaine now for a while, under Pepper’s tutelage, and every so often she’ll come up to his lab to hassle him with what his customers are saying.  
“What now? Are we getting complaints about the castoreum?” says Steve.  
Darcy shoves her Starkpad under his nose. One full bottle of Wolf at the Table, to be shipped to -   
A Mr. Fury, Nicholas J.  
Steve blinks, then laughs like a drain. He mixes Darcy up a whole batch of her favourite fizzing grapefruit-sherbet scent, just for giving him the mental image of Fury breathlessly reloading his website on limited edition day.  
But he was right about the formula. If it works for Fury it could never work for Buck.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My inspiration for Wolf at the Table was Acqua di Parma 'Colonia Ambra', which I love. It's a tad more polished and refined than what I'm imagining Steve creating, but for my money at least (and it will be a long time before I have enough money to own any significant amount of the stuff), it has the same sort of aura of well-heeled menace about it.
> 
> Basenotes is a real website, by the way. It has a huge database of fragrance reviews and a forum with some really knowledgeable peple, so if you want to geek out enormously on fragrances of all kinds it's a good palce to try!


	7. Paparacha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am a grumpy cat today because I'm stuck indoors with a stomach bug, but at least I can give you lovely people your final chapter.

“That’s… that’s perfect,” says Tony. “That’s Pep. You put Pepper in a bottle. Seriously, I ought to have you arrested for that.”

“I swear I didn’t murder her and wrap her in fat,” says Steve.

“I’d have noticed,” says Pepper from the door. “What are we talking about?”

“This,” says Tony, holding out the test strip. “Steve bottled you. I feel like I should take offence.”

Pepper inhales deeply.

“Steve, that’s beautiful,” she says. “I knew you’d come through.”

“You don’t think it’s too much for the office?”

“She’s the damn CEO, she can knock out whole boardrooms if she likes,” says Tony.

“She can also talk,” says Pepper.

“I knew that.” Tony subsides, with a flash of a charming smile.

“Is that some kind of pepper?” Pepper asks.

“Pink pepper,” says Steve, impressed. “And ginger in the top notes. The base is mainly patchouli, vanilla, a little wood.”

“And some kind of flowers?”

The same magnolia as Peggy’s scent, in fact; but here its icy aloofness is moderated by cinnamon and the barest dab of fruit.

“Of course, if you’d like this to be a custom blend exclusive to you-” starts Steve, conscious of his bottom line as well as his love of pleasing friends.

“I’d be depriving the world of something lovely,” Pepper smiles. “I asked you to follow your inspiration, Steve, not harness your business to Stark Industries.”

“You are seriously planning to sell off bottles of my partner. He’s seriously planning that. Pepper, how could you.”

“A bottle of perfume can’t do justice to me, Tony,” Pepper chides, settling her hands either side of Tony’s neck. Steve shakes his head fondly at the pair, and suddenly misses Bucky like a wound.

 

“Hey,” says Bucky rustily.

He looks a little more like himself today. The glassy emptiness in his eyes is gone; there’s life there. Wary, reserved, but pleased.

“Doc said you know my name now.”

“Steve,” says Bucky. “You’re Steve.”

“That’s great, Buck,” says Steve.

“You’re… bigger.”

“That’s right, Buck. Howard and Doc Erskine changed me.”

Bucky pauses. “How tall were you?” he asks, intense.

Steve stands. So does Bucky. ‘About so,” says Steve, holding out a hand at chest height.

Bucky raises his flesh hand - the other is hidden in a black cotton glove - and sets it on nothingness, where Steve’s shoulder might once have been.

“I remember that,” he says. “How you used to fit under my arm.”

Steve remembers it too, vividly. The smells all around him were Brooklyn and home; cigarette smoke and laundry, stew, asphalt, overripe fruit. Unlovely. True. And over it all the smell of Buck clean and pressed, the same scratchy wool that had encased Peggy -

The same skin-scent that surrounds him now. He opens his eyes. Bucky is leaning towards him, his eyes sharp.

“You always disappear like that?” he asks. As if he wants Steve to say yes, to say that he shares those moments of vanishing into unbeing with Bucky. Steve’s eyes sting. He wants to crack a joke about taking a leaf out of Bucky’s book, but instead what he says is “I can’t get you right.”

“What?”

“I keep trying to make a scent that reminds me of you.”

Bucky sits back in his chair and gives a twisted smile.

“Smash every bottle in the lab and sell the broken glass.”

“Bucky, that’s not - you’re not -”

“I’m a lot of things.” Bucky looks down. “And they’re not going to go away.”

Steve looks at him, waits till Bucky meets his eyes, and keeps looking.

“I don’t want them to.”

 

Steve looks at his notebook; reluctantly, he opens it, and runs a line through the last formula on Bucky’s page. He makes a note underneath it, in ink.

_Give it time._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't seen 'Perfume: The Story of a Murderer', that's where the joke about wrapping Pepper in fat comes from. It's an amazing film which deserves watching for Ben Whishaw's performance alone. 
> 
> Also, since we're talking about Pepper, a word about ginger in perfume. If you're very familiar with what freshly cut root ginger smells like and you sniff the perfume note people call ginger, then you will *just about* be able to detect something in common between the two. Ginger in perfumes is an unholy, sharp, almost sour sort of scent which threw me for a loop when I first figured out what it was. It's popular in more modern, fresh and "sporty" compositions - perfumes that aim to break stereotypes about old ladies and powdery florals, although ironically enough in doing so they've become a stereotype all of their own. As Steve uses it here it would be very very firmly under the thumb of a collection of other notes - it's just a nod to Pepper's natural spark.
> 
> And finally - I hope you enjoyed :)


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